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Barry. Time is an extremely fragile construct. Any deviation, no matter how small, could result in a cataclysm...What tragedy you think you've just averted, time will find a way to replace it

. ~ Harrison Wells (Eobard Thawne)

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Eobard Thawne knew the consequence of messing with time quite well. He had seen what would have happened if Nora Allen had never died, had seen what would happen if Barry had never been taken in by Joe West, had even seen what would happen if he ended up with Iris West. He knew how fragile time was and how easy it was to deviate from the intended path for that world. Yes there were many worlds, each more a variant of the others. There is a world for each and every possible outcome, of ‘what if I had gotten on that plan’, ‘what if I had been decided to walk across the street when the car sped through’ and many others. Of course with how many people there are in the world it isn’t surprising. Time-Space was a tricky thing, even with being careful to recreate a specific scenario there are always going to be miniscule changes that cannot be accounted for. Unfortunately he hadn’t even spared a passing thought on those, only thinking of the larger picture.

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The first thing Barry noticed when he came to was the music and the voices.

“Oh good you’re up!” the male spoke. Barry pushed himself up, blinking his eyes, trying to get the darkness to recede.

“-struck by lightning, have-”

“W-why is it dark?” Barry interrupted, a bone deep terror beginning to fill him. He couldn’t see. His breathing began to quicken as he waved his hands in front of his face.

“I can’t see.”

“Barry, Barry I need you to calm down okay?” a female spoke, “Just focus on my voice alright? We’ll figure this out but you need to calm down.” gentle hands were on his shoulders in a bit of a hug.

“Breath with me okay?” she instructed. It took sometime but eventually Barry wasn’t at risk of passing out.

“W-Where am I? W-What happened?”

“You’re in S.T.A.R labs.” the female informed, “I am Dr. Caitlin Snow.”

“I’m Cisco Ramon.” the male spoke up.

“You see Barry. The day the particle accelerator went online there was… a complication.”

“The whole thing blew.” Cisco piped up.

“You were stuck by lightning from the resulting storm.” Caitlin continued, “You’ve been in a coma.”

“How long?” Barry hated how afraid he sounded.

“It- Ah.”

“You’ve been in a coma for nine months.” Nine months. He had been in a coma for nine months and now…

“I need to run some tests okay? To make sure everything is okay.” Barry nodded, feeling numb. A noise caught his attention.

“Ah, Mr. Allen. It’s good to see you awake.”

“D-Dr. Wells?”

“Yes. You gave us all quite a scare. How are things Caitlin?” She placed a hand on Barry’s shoulder, giving it a light squeeze.

“...His pupils weren’t dilating when I flashed light into them.”

“What?”

“Dr. Wells… Barry’s blind.” a heavy feeling sank deep into Barry’s stomach. He began shaking.

“Holy sh- dude you’re vibrating!”

“What?” A new hand rested on his arm, this one was bigger, more firm and with more callouses than Cisco’s hand.

“Calm down Mr. Allen, alright? I am going to take a look at Caitlin's data. We will figure out what’s going on.” Barry nodded a little, heart still beating frantically. The sound of his heart flat-lining while he was still hooked up and obviously alive was not helping the situation.

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It was official. He was blind and there didn’t look like there was a way to fix it. On top of that he had superspeed. That would have been cool if he hadn’t ran full speed into a wall he hadn’t even seen. Barry sighed where he sat on the medical bed. Iris and Joe were coming soon to check on him. As much as he wanted to there was no way he could go home. If it had been one thing or the other Barry probably would have headed home, but the last thing he needed was to end up super speeding somewhere and get lost.

“Barry?” a worried female’s voice broke through his thoughts.

“Bear?” came a man’s. It felt like a punch to the stomach. He couldn’t see them. He would never see his sister’s face nor would he see either of his fathers’ faces again.

“Barry, what’s wrong?” Iris’ arms were around him, hugging him tightly.

“Mr. West, a word?” Wells requested. Barry heard the footsteps walking away.

“Iris.” Barry began in a broken voice.

“What’s wrong?”

“I...I can’t see.”

“What?”

“Iris, I’m blind.” The arms around him hugged him tighter.

“Barry…”

“Iris, I can’t see. W-What about my job? How can I be a forensic scientist if I can’t even see what I’m supposed to be doing… Oh god. Iris I can’t help my dad.” Barry was beginning to get frantic.

“Barry you need to calm down.” Iris soothed, “We’ll figure everything out. Little at a time okay? Right now let’s get you home.” Barry nodded sadly.

“I would like Barry brought back tomorrow if it’s alright.” Caitlin spoke up, she placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, “I know you have a lot to come to terms with but we still don’t know the full extent of your condition…” Her hair brushed Barry’s shoulder. Her voice was low to keep Iris from hearing what she was going to say.

“I know Dr. Wells doesn’t want you telling them about your speed but I think you should. It is your choice though.” She patted his shoulder before listing off everything Iris needed to know as she also wrote it down. Barry let himself zone out as he considered what Caitlin told him. I made sense why Dr. Wells wouldn’t want anyone know about the speed, especially while he couldn’t see but this was Joe and Iris. He was going to be living with them again for who knows how long.

“Alright, time to go Barry.” Iris helped him stand and Caitlin passed him is walking cane. As Barry was helped into the car he made his choice. With a sigh he rested his head against the window, giving a weak smile as the STAR labs team said their goodbyes.

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It was three weeks since he had woken up. It sucked so much. He couldn’t see anything and bumped into things too often. Not only that but there were others running around with powers and he couldn’t help. On the one hand Caitlin’s fiance was half of Firestorm. Barry accidentally met him once when he went in for a check up. The accident part came in when he had a burst of speed and ran into him, while he was on fire. That was a huge mess but also how they learned about his accelerated healing. There was also someone who could fly, but Barry hadn’t met her yet.

“We’re glad you’re awake.” a voice spoke. Barry gave a weak smile in the direction that he heard the voice. Iris decided to throw a party for him and invited almost everyone from the precinct and Jitters. Of course it was being held at Jitters the others could see him as well as some patrolling officers. Jitters had an overlap of four different beats.

“Thanks.” Barry said to whoever the man was.

“Allen.” Now that voice was familiar and Barry felt calm by at least one familiar person.

“Hi Captain Singh.” He greeted. A hand guided him in the actual direction the man was standing. Barry felt his face heat up a bit.

“It’s good to see you up and about.”

“Thanks.”

“David,” a new voice spoke softly, though it still startled Barry a little.

“This is my fiance Rob.” He felt a hand take his.

“It’s nice to meet you.” Barry said as he shook hands.

“It’s nice to meet you too. It’s great finally having a face to the name. David talks very highly about you.” Barry could tell his disbelief was being shown when Rob continued, “He really does, of course there’s also complaining about your tardiness.”

“Everyone complains about that. I used to get detentions for being late all the time.”

“Half those detentions were for skipping school,” Singh reminded, “I recall a few prominent times when I had to pick you up from various … interesting places.”

“Not that interesting.”

“Barry, I got a call about a young boy climbing on the underside of the train track over the river.” Singh reminded, “And that was just after the chicken incident.”

“You promised not to bring that up anymore.” Barry whinned. There was a laugh and Barry was pulled into a hug.

“It really is great seeing you up and about again Barry.” Barry hugged Singh back before pulling away.

“Barry!” Barry stumbled as someone ran into him. Hands steadied him.

“Oh man, Sorry dude.” Cisco apologized. Barry waved him off.

“What’s up?”

“Oh! So it turns out that you were right about the amount of propane having to go in versus the amount of carbon coming out.”

“So it works?”

“Just about.”

“Barry?”

“Cisco, this is Captain Singh and his fiancee Rob. Captain Singh, Rob, this is Cisco. He’s one of the people helping me.”

“Well it’s nice to meet you.” Rob greeted.

“Nice to meet you too. Hey Barry are you free a couple days from now?” Barry bit back his reply but nodded, “Cool. Do you want to come over to STAR labs? I finally convinced Wells and Caitlin to watch Star Wars.”

“Uh, sure.” Barry agreed.

“Sweet. Are there any snacks you want?”

“Nothing sour.”

“I feel like there’s a story behind that.”

“Oh there definitely is.” Singh agreed.

“Which is another story you promised to never speak about again.” Barry might not have been able to see it but he knows Singh rolled his eyes.

“Well, I’ll pick you up okay?” Cisco asked, “I was actually here on a coffee run and you do not know scary until you’ve seen Caitlin without her caffeine.”

“Alright, I’ll see you later.” Barry was pulled into several other conversations as the time went by and Barry actually felt himself relaxing. It was nice. Barry was finally in a good space when of course someone had to ruin it.

“Oh looky here. It’s Allen.”

“Uh-”

“Guess now there’s no denying how useless you are.”

“I-”

“Come on, everyone knows the only reason you’re still around was because of Singh and Joe. Without them you’d be out of a job.” the man continued with some other things, the sort of things that plucked at the doubt in Barry’s mind.

“Everything alright?”

“Fine.” Barry gave a weak smile, “But could you help me to the door? I want to get some fresh air.”

“Okay.” Barry was guided to the door and right to the corner.

“Do you need me to stay?” Barry shook his head, waiting until he was sure he was alone before starting to walk. It was just around the block. He didn’t want to risk getting lost. He was going down a quiet area when suddenly he felt a rush of air. His heart was in his throat as he sped through the city, unable to tell where he was going. Even though he couldn’t see Barry squeezed his eyes shut as he continued on. Just as suddenly as it happened it ended. He reached around, slowly turning around to see if he could feel anything. Kneeling down he reached out without any luck. Licking his lips nervously he called out,

“Hello?” There was no response. Heart beating in his throat Barry slowly shuffled, ears straining for any noise. A flood of relief filled him once his fingers brushed a wall.

“Hello?” A creak caught his attention.

“Well look what we have here.”

“Better bring him in until the boss gets back.”

“Should just kill him now.” Ice filled Barry as he heard a click of a gun.

“No way. I’m not doing that. Just bring him in.”

“Move.” the man ordered.

“I-I-”

“Well?” Came a growl. Shaking Barry moved to where he thought the men were, one hand firmly on the wall. His feet shuffled a bit, shifting around in front of him so he didn’t trip.

“Come on.” A hand grabbed him, yanking him around. He was dragged around before being shoved onto the ground.

“Wait here.” Barry curled up, arms wrapped around his legs as he sat quietly. He was scared. He had no idea where he was, he couldn’t see and the others didn’t know where he was either. With a heavy sigh Barry did the only thing he could. Wait.